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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

ECOWAS look to UN to settle Guinea Bissau

General Agusto Mario, Guinea-Bissau army chief-of-staff /PHOTO: AFP

Following the failure of the foreign ministers of the
Contact Group and Bissau Junta to reach an agreement on a 12-month regional
plan for the restoration of democratic rule during an April 29, 2012 meeting in
Banjul, ECOWAS is now seeking the backing of the UN.

The sub-regional economic bloc’s political director
Abdel-Fatau Musah describes Untied Nations (UN) support as “crucial”, saying it
will show a “united international effort” to restore constitutional rule in one
of the sub-regions most unstable nations.

“We need the Security Council to support us, we need the
African Union to support the ECOWAS position, so that the stakeholders in
Guinea-Bissau will realize that the international community is united around
the desire to get that country back to normalcy, as quickly as possible,” Musah
is quoted to have said.

On May 7, the West African regional grouping said it
believes a solution will be found soon to the crisis in Guinea-Bissau and is
calling for "sacrifices and compromises" by supporters and opponents
of last month's military coup.

Salamatu Hussaini-Suleiman, ECOWAS' commissioner for
political affairs, peace and security, told the UN Security Council that immediately
restoring the constitutional order that existed before the coup, as the PAIGC
party of the overthrown-government is demanding, could lead to civil war.

During a May 3 meeting of ECOWAS leaders in Dakar, Senegal,
regional leaders directed that the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) should be
deployed in the country to replace forces of the Angolan Technical Assistance
Group.

This, it said, will ensure the security of the transition
and assist in the implementation of the programme for the defence and security sector
reform.

The issue of “immediate troops deployment” was first raised
at an extra-ordinary summit in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on April 26, however,
ECOWAS seems not to be at rush since Guinea-Bissau's junta said it would fight
to defend itself if foreign troops intervened.

The warning came barely five days before the declaration of
the Abidjan meeting to send in troops in that unstable country.

"Guinea-Bissau will not accept an intervention force
because the situation does not require it. If a force is sent, the country will
defend its territorial integrity," Lieutenant-Colonel Daba Na Walna told
journalists. "An intervention force assumes the presence of warring
parties, which is not the case."

Contradictorily, ECOWAS political director says Bissau’s military
junta has accepted the deployment of the ESF, to help secure the transition,
start work on the security sector reform that has been on ice for several
months and ensure that the Angolan military contingent in that country leaves
peacefully.

The ECOWAS proposed 12-month transition period which called
for the interim president, the ousted President Raimundo Pereira to lead the
transition, has been rejected outright by the coup leaders. The majority party,
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) also
rejected the offer.

This followed a deal struck between the junta and the opposition
for a lengthy return to civilian rule, but ECOWAS said it would never accept
the transitional arrangement.

On Monday, Hussaini-Suleiman reiterated that ECOWAS, which
has taken the lead in trying to resolve the crisis, will also not accept the
proposals of the junta and its allies "because that would be tantamount to
rewarding the coup plotters." "A compromise is therefore needed,"
she said.

Observers say the imminent call to force will be determine
by the military leaders decision with 26 parties to establish a two-year
National Transitional Council, rejected by ECOWAS, whose proposal for a
12-month transition to culminate in a presidential election was also equally
rejected by the junta and allies.

Speaking at the UN Security Council on Monday,
Hussaini-Suleiman said the ECOWAS leaders’ authorization of the deployment of a
600-strong standby force "is imminent.”

ECOWAS imposed diplomatic, economic and financial sanctions
on Guinea Bissau after the April 29 talks in Banjul failed woefully. The
sanctions also targets members of the junta that seized power in an April 12
military coup, and their associates blamed for the current impasse in the
country’s political process.

The coup disrupted the political process to elect a
replacement for President Bacai Sanha who died in January 2012. It came at a
time when the drug-infested, weak judicial and the military power-hungry
country was due to hold an election runoff of which Prime Minister Carlos Gomes
was favourite, his opponent, former president Kumba Yalla withdrew from the
race citing electoral abnormalities.

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